But it's also clear Apple does care deeply about its public image, both among consumers and the developer community. Apple will be the one who decides whether any of Apple's behavior or its business model justify intervention from the court. By his estimation, Apple does seem to genuinely believe the creation of the iPhone, iOS and the App Store - in addition to the tools it provides and its ongoing and massive R&D spend - justifies a significant return in perpetuity.That perspective is pretty common among small to medium-sized developers, Bajarin said, and those are the people Apple is largely focused on during WWDC. In Sandofsky's eyes, the feud between Apple and Epic was "mostly a distracting reality show" hashing out what are largely settled matters.iOS is a closed and proprietary OS, which sounds bad, but it's all about trade-offs," he said. "I feel like a lot of complaints come from people who expect something like web development.But developer Ben Sandofsky said he tries to put them in the context of what Apple provides, how that offering has improved over the years and the company's core philosophy around closed ecosystems.Even the most successful iOS developers have voiced concerns about Apple in recent years, mainly focusing on app review delays and onerous App Store policies that force developers to jump through hoops. But once they're a certain size, Bajarin added, and they no longer qualify for Apple's commission reduction down to 15%, then you start to hear some grumbling.Ĭomplaints against Apple aren't new."You're seeing that a lot of really small developers for the most part are pretty happy," he said.We spoke to Ben Bajarin, CEO and technology analyst at Creative Strategies, who is in the process of conducting an iOS developer survey to measure satisfaction with Apple and the App Store. Perhaps most telling were responses from CEO Tim Cook in court where he characterized the App Store's 30% commission as "a return on our IP," and said he believes Apple creates "the entire amount of commerce on the store," justifying whatever commission it chooses.īut a majority of iOS developers are actually pretty happy.The company has to square many of the revealing comments its executives made, both in private emails and in testimony, with the rosy message it sends to the world during events like WWDC. But in the picture Epic painted, Apple has been unwilling to change its behavior to protect profits, and exists in a market devoid of competition that would force that to happen. The trial often provided Apple an opportunity to make a rather convincing case for how it built the iPhone and the App Store and why it runs its mobile business the way it does. Apple antitrust trial that just concluded is looming over this year's conference. But more important than in years past is that Apple communicates that it cares about developers and actively wants to make their lives easier.īecause the Epic v. WWDC gives Apple a chance to reset the narrativeĪpple is hosting its second all-virtual Worldwide Developers Conference starting today, giving the company its annual opportunity to showcase upcoming changes to its software platforms and maybe some new hardware, too.
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